


Untitled

by Dumb_Pigeon_With_A_Keyboard



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 18:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20119474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dumb_Pigeon_With_A_Keyboard/pseuds/Dumb_Pigeon_With_A_Keyboard
Summary: Hi there! I'm not sure how gifts work, but I wanted to send you this. It's a little thingamabob that I wrote after being inspired about thinking what would happen after Love Like Moonlight and I wanted to share it with you. I chose not to use tags so it'd be harder for people to find it, since it's a fanfic of a fanfic. It didn't feel right tagging it all up to try and get people to find it. I hope you like it and I hope I didn't overstep any boundaries!P.S. The writing isn't done because I couldn't think of how to resolve it after the angst, sorry, I know it's kind of a hot mess!





	Untitled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [just_quintessentially_me](https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_quintessentially_me/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Touch Like Sunlight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19456282) by [goodomensblog (just_quintessentially_me)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_quintessentially_me/pseuds/goodomensblog), [just_quintessentially_me](https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_quintessentially_me/pseuds/just_quintessentially_me). 

It had been almost a week since The Fight with the archangels and Aziraphale had barely spoken to Crowley since they had arrived back home.

That night, they had staggered into the backroom of the bookshop, still covered in the stains of the respective gold and dark ichor they were far too spent to vanish away.

Aziraphale had fallen silent after their conversation about how he'd escaped Crowley’s damned trap and Aziraphale’s plans for lunch with Daeval, the full weight of the day's events settling on both of them. The angel had helped his demon into bed and politely yet firmly commanded him to, “Rest.” 

At the time, Crowley had been too exhausted to protest or question why his angel was so terse, after all, Aziraphale had never been one to  _ not _ speak every thought crossing his mind. The angel was just as tired, Crowley reasoned. That's all.

The next day was no better. Aziraphale had brought Crowley breakfast and tea. Silent, he waved the demon’s bloodied and torn clothing into freshly pressed and clean black garments the demon was infamous for dressing in exclusively. Aziraphale had paused, not meeting his demon’s eyes, and placed a hand on Crowley’s chest. Tugging down the collar of his black shirt, Aziraphale stared at the silvery scar remaining on Crowley’s chest, where Gabriel had pierced it with the Corrupted Blade. The scar was entirely too few inches close to Crowley’s heart for either of the pair to be comfortable.

Aziraphale tsked and made a complicated gesture, but the scar remained.

Crowley stared at his angel, holding perfectly still as Aziraphale narrowed his eyes and made the gesture once more. The scar still remained.

“Well then,” the sky in the angel’s eyes clouded over from a storm that Crowley couldn't quite read as Azirphale stood up, tugged at his vest, and left before Crowley could ask a word.

The silence was driving him absolutely mad. He tried cajoling his angel into speaking to him with every trick he knew. Offering to treat them to lunch, asking about what new book Aziraphale was reading, miracling a favorite bottle of wine and two glasses, he tried everything short of Temptation to get the angel to speak to him outside of what was absolutely necessary.

On the fifth day, Aziraphale informed the demon that he had to step out to pick up a package and would be back in an hour. Crowley, resorting to being a smart arse, asked him to pick up a Hallmark card apologizing for being a stupid demon. Aziraphale had sighed, pointedly not looked at Crowley, and exited the shop without another word. Crowley regretted the stupid request and mentally went back to the drawing board.

  
  


A storm was brewing inside Aziraphale, one that left him feeling everything an angel was not supposed to feel. Betrayal, anger, fear, and bitter sadness whirled in his bones, mixing together into one big complex Hurt that he could not quite put into words just yet. His mind played over and over the image of Crowley trapped underneath Gabriel, his face drowning in Hellfire and agony and panic. Aziraphale’s mind replayed for a thousandth time the infinite hour he spent trapped in Crowley’s binding circle, knuckles bruising as he tried desperately to reach through the floor to the infuriatingly small symbols that held him in place until Crowley’s little errand boy had tracked the demon to Aziraphale’s bookshop. 

It had barely been an hour before Daeval had freed him, but in that time Aziraphale had had the opportunity to watch Crowley die in his stead a thousand times in the crystal clear definition that was his imagination. He had watched Crowley be bound in holy ropes and set ablaze, watched his demon be forced to drink holy water, and so many worse things Aziraphale knew vengeful angels would be capable of. In his mind, he had watched Crowley die alone, broken and battered and too far from Aziraphale for the angel to save him. 

When Daeval had freed Aziraphale and his full power had come flooding back after being held at bay from the Binding Circle, Aziraphale had barely been able to keep his divine energy under control long enough to bark at Daeval, “Where did he go?” without frying the poor lower demon where he stood just through proximity. Once he’d had a location, Aziraphale had unfurled his wings and with one snap his cozy bookshop had melted into night and desert. Normally these types of jumps left the angel with terrible vertigo, but his mind had been painfully sharp that night. When the dust and lightning had cleared enough for him to see. . . When Crowley’s fire-lit eyes had met his and he’d asked Aziraphale to--

The exact words came to the angel when, on his way back from the post office, he happened to see a window display in a small gift shop. In the display sat a collection of ceramic figurines, the type which usually only exist on the mantels of the homes of grandmothers.

The little figurines depicted Biblical moments with insultingly cute faces and pastel colors. What appeared to be a representation of the Virgin Mary wearing a baby blue robe (how disrespectful, Aziraphale had thought. That dear family had been much too poor to afford such richly colored robes and it seemed awfully rude to mock them with this) swaddled a white bundle with a sleeping face and golden locks peeking out. Hardly appropriate, given these two figures lived in what was now considered the Middle East, but Aziraphale was not one to limit the imagination of humans. In the display sat a Noah, leading chubby little pastel animals toward an Ark that was woefully too small for its job. There were little angels standing in line, waiting patiently for a turn to slide down a rainbow slide, which caused Aziraphale to chuckle. The chuckle died halfway out of his mouth, however, when he saw  _ It _ . A figurine of a boy angel. It had pale blonde hair and bright blue eyes and its chubby face smiled lazily as its hands plucked the strings of a damned  _ harp. _

Aziraphale’s eyes narrowed and his brows drew close together, his frown cut a harsh line across his face. The words he needed to say formed in his mind with painful clarity. He turned away from the window display. With a snap of his fingers a small, insulting figurine weighted down one of his coat pockets and as he took a step, the wind around him shifted, the world bleeding away from a busy shopping street into the familiar corner of the A. Z. Fell and Co. entrance.

It was frivolous, a logical part of the angel’s mind chided, to teleport oneself instead of walking the full ten blocks back to the shop. But, the more pressing part of his thoughts countered, he had more important things to do than waste his time walking.

Crowley was in the kitchen preparing tea when Aziraphale strode in. “The normal amount of sugar?” Crowley asked, a small, unspoken hope tinting his voice. He turned to look at his silent angel, glowering at him in a way the demon hadn't seen since their first real fight in St. James Park.

“Is this how you see me?” Aziraphale asked but his tone did not imply a question.

Crowley forced a laugh, “Standing in your kitchen?”

Aziraphale snapped his fingers and Crowley felt a weight settle in his palm. He lifted his hand up and inspected the object.

Crowley laughed in the way someone does when they aren't sure yet if the joke that was said is funny, “Oh jeez, these little things? They're so cheesy. Could you imagine Michael in a-”

_ “That was not my question.” _

Crowley froze, clutching the paperweight close to his chest. The air around Aziraphale was filled with the worst kind of silence, the kind that happens in between the cock of a gun and the pull of the trigger. The type of silence that rages before the impact.

“Aziraphale, I-”

“I am Aziraphale, Principality of the Eastern Gate. I bore witness to the creation of this world and, were it not for what we did  _ together _ , I would have borne witness to its destruction.” The angel spoke calmly and quietly with fists clenched stiff to his sides, but his words burned as if he were shouting. “Had the End Times truly been allowed to commence, I would have commanded my own battalion. I would have been  _ trusted _ to lead soldiers into battle, sword drawn high.”

Aziraphale's eyes flashed and his wings unfurled, dominating the space available in the kitchen. Loose paper swirled in the air they created, “I am not some chittering little cherub still glowing from the first creation. I am just as ancient as you, Crowley. I am just as strong and powerful.” He finally met Crowley’s gaze.

When Crowley looked into his painfully clear blue eyes, he saw his own betrayal. He saw the look in his angel's eyes the moment he realized what Crowley had done. He saw how disgusted and insulted Aziraphale must be that Crowley, an average mid-tier demon, would think the angel was incapable of battle.

However, if Crowley could actually read Aziraphale’s mind, then he would know that Aziraphale may have been looking at Crowley physically, but in his mind he saw Gabriel towering over a broken and battered demon who was bleeding and burning alive from the inside out. He saw the future where Daeval was exactly two seconds too late and Aziraphale would have arrived just in time to watch the damned blade sink into his demon’s heart and he was left to a world without him. Aziraphale needed Crowley to know, to  _ know _ that, while he hated confrontation with a passion, it did not mean for one second that he was unwilling if it meant protecting who he loved.

“I am sorry,” Aziraphale’s voice cracked and Crowley looked up to see his angel tuck his wings away, hands folded behind his back. “I am sorry that I was not. . . that I didn't let you know before, that you can rely on me in your battles. If I had known how. . . soft you thought I was then I could have been. . . better. You could have trusted me.”

In that moment, Crowley wished that the Hellfire had consumed him so he wouldn’t have to see the look in his angel’s eyes today.


End file.
